after Major Jackson on The Slowdown

Be a person, says my friend Sarah after a meeting

At school; a motto the world should try to take on.

Be a person; it should be a necessity, a basic need

Like shelter, like food, like love. Being a person

Is more than just our morals, values, and our species;

It’s about humanity; it’s about the essentials of our

Kind. Being a person involves beauty, but so many

Of us avert our eyes. I try not to. I applaud it when I

See it. Maybe, it’s the teacher in me, or the poet, but

I try to see the craft of it all – we create who we want

To be, and at the end of the day, each day brings us

Farther into the future, where everything ends, but

Where everything is also happening, and as Brian

Turner says, how beautiful we are in the ruins.

There is so much in the world to fall in love with,

And imagine if I never had. Imagine, if I never

Appreciated compliments I’ve received, the embrace

Of a friend, the heft of a lover. Imagine never feeling

The sun on my face on a 75° day and saying, yes;

Thank you. Imagine, the ocean, if I never sought out

Its glimmer-gleam, never felt its foamy kiss at my ankle,

Its eternal lapping, its soundscape of everlong. Say,

I never appreciated the starry night, the crawl of

Peach and lilac across the sky at twilight, or the sheer

Fragrance of lilacs on the Park path; Sure, you could

Still love the world, but it would be a love halved.

If you look and see nothing, you must simply look harder.

Everything is a miracle if we’re open to receiving it.

I work hard at the love I give, at how I shield my

Eyes and heart. Nothing gold can stay, but there is

Beauty; there is much to imagine out of our reach.

The other day, I told a friend at a reading that she

Looked beautiful, and when I saw her a few days later,

She looked at me insisting, No. No, you don’t understand.

I didn’t. I smiled saying, well, I think so, and she replied,

I don’t have that said to me often. Too often, we don’t tell

People why they make us smile, the why is important,

And last week, in Central Park with students, watching

The solar eclipse, there was so much apathy in their faces,

But I, I was thrilled. I was enamored in darkness; coolness

Rolled over me, like love or nightfall, and when I took

My eyes away from the glare of sun, I saw the lampposts

Each coming on, one by one, small moons of another planet.

There are so many quiet spaces. There are so many

Spaces to stand and pause. I try to make myself aware

Of them. There is so much to love. And after, at the end of

Uncle Vanya the other night, when Vanya cries out,

What can we do?, in sadness, in grief, Sonia consoles him.

We shall live, she says. And of course, we shall. Of course.

I choose love, and I choose to love. And my boyfriend is right.

I talk to everyone, even strangers, especially strangers. I

Smile when I can. I compliment dogs. I’m not sure that

Anything is a coincidence anymore. Everything matters, for

It strings us to one another. The figuring takes work,

That making of meaning takes work, but I can’t imagine it

Another way. Some people long to be someone else,

But I am happy with who I am; Yes, I want the world

To be different. Yes, I can be different, but what

Can we do to love more? We can live.